Playing Around

Today was Thursday.  That, boys and girls, means I had four hours off duty while a volunteer watched, ready to take action, in case Carolyn began to fall.  Or, if he was more than a step away, to pick her up from the floor.

The last several Thursday's I've shopped til I dropped, taken the mutt to the vet for his rabies shot and then to the police station for the new license, and caught up on car maintenance.  The dreaded oil changes and such.  Since I was raised in a good Protestant home, I learned early in life to do a good job. 

I was taught to take care of my business in a timely, efficient manner,  and to face the challenges life presents to all of us head on.  I know that some may claim gale force winds are more easily dealt with by presenting one's side to the wind, rather than facing it squarely.  Physics, aerodynamics and Bernoulli's law is on their side. 

My own beliefs, though, leave me little option in this matter.  I will stand with the wind in my face and deal with it.  That's what good Protestants do, even though I have long since given up any hope of finding the bliss I'm looking for inside a building.

There's a reason for this, but it's a long, sad story with no redeeming humor.  Sometimes it's just better to let the past remain a searing memory between my ears, and between the ears of the person who spewed the venom that caused me to find my own way to Heaven.  A way that does not involve taking direction from another person or congregation of people. 

So, just by being the good, efficient Protestant that I have been taught to be, there were not a whole lot of chores left.  I realized there was very little I needed to accomplish today.  For the first time in months, there was some free time in my life, and I knew just how to spend it.  At the airport!

I drove over there and looked at all the closed and locked gates.  I've never been an outsider at an airport, never in my life.  In my youth they were always wide open, welcoming places.  Fences and gates had nothing to do with those magical places until 9/11/01.

Before that date, an airport was the home to Gods who could climb into majestic machines and soar high above the earth.  Gods who could play with the fabric of clouds, who could loop and roll and laugh at gravity: the same gravity that slowly weakens and ultimately kills all of us one day at a time.  The Gods who hung out at the airport would defy that gravity while I was watching.  Then they would return to earth and swagger from their craft with a triumphant look on their faces.  And, all who dared to enter their domain were welcomed.

Soon, I joined their numbers and found them to be mere men.  Only mortals, but mortals who knew there was more to life than left and right.  They knew there was also up and down, and that makes all the difference in the world.

It's different today.  Today I had to look for a hole in the fence.  A hole I could sneak through to once again join their numbers.  It took a while but finally I found that for which I was searching.  "Learn To Fly"  the sign read,  so I pulled the Guzzler into a parking space and walked through the door. 

"Hey, you guys rent planes by the hour here?" I asked.  They said yes and gave me hourly rates for various models.  "How 'bout an EAA chapter.  Is there one around?  I'm new in town."

An old geezer, probably five or six years younger than me, who was leaning back against a wall reading a "Sport Aviation" magazine perked up at that question.  "I know something about that - there's a chapter up in Prineville and one in Bend.  My name's Tom."   

We talked for an hour or so, nothing consequential, just about airplanes and the price of fuel.  The tales of derring-do will come in a couple more months.  No body likes to brag of their exploits right off the bat, it's bad manners.   As other guys walked through he introduced me.  There were too many names to remember but I'll get to know them.

It was neat to find a kindred soul, but the time passed too quickly.   I needed to get back home.  So I said good bye and headed back.

I really enjoyed the time I had to myself; time I spent at the airport as I have done so often in my life. .